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Sunday, January 19, 2003
Benediction in dance
By Orlando J. Cajegas
The rhythm is simple: two steps forward and a step backward, to the beating of drums. But each step is more than just dance —it’s an act of surrender, of supplication, that dates back more than 400 years ago.
They say it’s a pagan ritual for a Christian God, but to most, it’s a sacrament, a manifestation of our faith,” says Juan “Dodong” Aquino Jr., who had been executive director of the Sinulog Foundation for two decades.
It was when the carved image of the holy child Jesus—the Santo Niño— was given by Ferdinand Magellan to Queen Juana that she jumped with joy at the sight of the gift, and led her attendants in the dance of the sulog or tides. They were, in fact, the first Sinulog dancers, and they were dancing to a God they had very little knowledge of. A leap of faith, indeed, rising from the beating of their hearts.
But the Sinulog, the parade and mardi gras, only started in 1981. It was undertaken through the initiative of then mayor Florentino Solon and conceptualized by then regional director of the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development David Odilao Jr.
While streetdancing was done around the Basilica for years, and in 1980 an interschool-based project by students inspired by Odilao took to dancing in the streets, it was only in 1981 that contingents which were not school-based participated in the event.
The festivity was thus called “Sinulog sa Sugbu”. After its inception, it was turned over to the city government and renamed simply as Sinulog. “This was to put Sinulog in its proper perspective; otherwise other places can always claim Sinulog as theirs,” Aquino says.
In 1984, the Sinulog Foundation was registered as a non-stock, non-profit organization. Also, the logo and name Sinulog were patented to be exclusively used by the Foundation. The little proceeds of the festivities were then kept as seed money for the next Sinulog. The rest, as we know it, is history.
Over the years, the dance has metamorphosed into more than just an expression of faith: it has become an artform. The incorporation of the Free-Interpretation” category has encouraged dance troupes to stretch the limits of the imagination, from the sublime to the sensual (the Latino beat adds verve in the gyration of bodies dancing electric).
The Sinulog has, indeed, evolved into what it is now: a yearly show of pomp and pageantry, featuring not only the flailing of arms in supplication, the two-steps forward and one-step backward in thanksgiving, but also the creativity that goes into the benediction of the dance itself in reverence of the Child, who is the source of all good things.
(January 19, 2003 issue)
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